Teachers agitation enters third day

The joint agitation of teachers demanding abolition of block grant mode of service entered third day today.
The teachers and lecturers staging dharna under banner of Odisha School College Teachers and Employees Joint Forum threatened that the agitation will be intensified if their demands are not met.
Ruling BJD MLAs Sanjay Das Burma and Pranab Prakash Das on behalf of the state government met the block grant teachers and lecturers and appealed to the agitators to return to schools and colleges.
"Presently, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik is on a tour to New Delhi, he will return on August 20. He is aware about the problems and has requested the teachers for a discussion and any democratic demand will be considered by the government," Dasburma told reporters after meeting the agitating teachers.

The teachers have, however, declined to stop agitation.
"Till the government takes a decision on our demands and publish a notification on it the agitation will continue. We will withdraw our agitation only after the notification is published," said president of 488-category College Lecturers Association Pabitra Mahala.

"The agitation will not stop under any circumstances. Fulfil our demands, we will call off agitation immediately," said Convenor of School Teachers Federation of Odisha (STFO) Prakash Chandra Mohanty.
The block grant teachers and lecturers are agitating since Wednesday over their demands that include abolition of the block grant system, equal salary for equal work, salary as per 7th pay commission recommendations, provision of full aid, government takeover of all aided schools amongst others.

Higher Education Minister Ananta Das said that the government is considering the demands of the teachers.